Working In A Group Versus Working Alone

         

Blevins 10

Tyler Blevins
Mrs. Karwacinski
English 103
18 March 2016

Working in a group versus working alone

         As businesses and schools alike become increasingly integrated due to a spike in the level of sophistication of the technology and textbooks by which students gain their academic knowledge, it is so important to comprehend the benefits of group collaboration. A 2012 study by Gregory Walton at the University of Stanford found that when people were treated as though they were working together, they persisted 48-64% longer on a challenging task, reported having a greater interest in the task, and reported being less tired in the task because they were far more interested in it. "The results showed that simply feeling like you're part of a team of people working on a task makes people more motivated as they take on challenges," says Walton (1). While students are part of a group setting, students feel more involved and want to contribute their unique opinion on the task at hand. Although there are certain benefits of completing a complex task while working as an individual, such as working at a comfortable pace set by the individuals themselves, the upside of working as an individual is underwhelming compared to collaborating with a group of peers.
It is important to take into account various test scores of students working on solo assignments. A study conducted by Slavin examined several different cooperative and non-cooperative teaching methods and then the two were compared after an average period of four consecutive weeks. Slavin found that students who were working using the group-cooperative-learning method scored, on average, one fourth of a letter grade higher on academic tests compared to those students who were taught to work the conventional way. The increased learning of the students who took part in this study were found to be caused by having both group goals and ambitions, as well as individual accountability (419-421). Besides the academic success, researchers have also conducted an experiment to determine the effectiveness of working as a collaborative group while attempting to solve a difficult general life problem. Zhining Qin, David Johnson, and Roger Johnson created a hypothesis that stated that "Given the complex nature of problem solving and the multiple resources that a cooperative group has at its disposal, one would logically expect cooperative learning to have a positive effect on this outcome as well." A total of 46 studies were reviewed, and it was concluded that students of all academic levels who worked collaboratively outscored students who preferred to work as a competitive individual. Of the students participating in the experiment, those who worked in a cooperative group setting solved more of the problems correctly than 71 percent of the students who were working as competitive individuals. The various studies that were conducted prove that as a general statement, working as a collaborative group is a mutually beneficial academic practice.
         It has been argued through other various studies and experiments that a student who chooses to work as an individual will have a statistical advantage over those who prefer to work in a group setting. A recent study by Peter J. Kuhn of The National Bureau of Economic Research suggests that not only do the majority of men prefer to work alone, but these men also perform at a higher aptitude while working alone. The study goes on to explain how men tend to prefer the solo work because many of those men have "overconfidence in their own abilities and distrust in their colleagues' aptitude, except under key situations" (1.) This is compared to women who were found to prefer working in a team setting, although they tended to perform worse when it was a highly competitive situation. This study suggests that men tend to outperform women as an individual worker, but women can be equally productive in a group world. There is an underlying bias to this whole situation, and from it can be assumes that if an individual thinks that his or her work colleagues are unintelligent, then that man or women probably will not trust them to work in close proximities to his or herself, therefore the man or women will assume that he or she is better off by his or herself regardless of the longevity of the work. Likewise, if a man or women puts faith in those working around him or her, it is much more likely that their help will be requested for a large and complicated task.
         Those individuals who prefer to work alone may be onto something, a recent study suggests. Psychologists at the Fuqua School of Business and Department of Psychology at Duke University have determined that if the goal set is high productivity and motivation, a group setting is not the best option:
In three experiments, researchers asked study participants to think of a way in which a partner helped them achieve specific health or academic goals. Those who went through the exercise subsequently planned to spend less time and devote less effort to the goals in question than those who did not. They also procrastinated more before engaging in a relevant task (1).
All of this suggests that a man or women in a team tends to become neglectful and will put off the task at hand because he or she believes that the rest of the team will cover for their procrastination if he or she does not feel the need to keep pace with the rest of the team. This means that generally a man or women working alone considers distractions of others to be counterproductive if he or she were to work in a group, and find it easier to concentrate alone.
Whether in an academic setting or a work place setting, students and employees must take the time to consider what is best for their overall development. It should be taken into account what relying on a team could do to a person, but at the same time the multiple benefits should also be recognized. Psychologists from the Fuqua school found that those individuals who thought about a partner or a group to lean on tended to be closer to those people, and developed stronger team bonds as a result. It was also found that this type of a relationship led to longer commitment when pursuing a difficult task, and creative business ideas were generated at a quicker pace compared to those working as individuals.
         A personal dimension of group learning includes the direct challenge of intelligence. While working as an individual, a person is forced to rely his or her own level of quick wit as well as his or her intellectual intuition. However, a person's intelligence is exploited in a very different way when collaborating with a group. Group work requires an individual to drop his or her identity and to become a participating team member when a difficult problem forces a group to stop and think. It is highly unlikely that the individual will agree with everything everyone in the group is saying. This is what makes the group setting so viable. Working as a group allows for group discussion where the floor is open for anyone participating to offer their opinion on the task at hand. This allows for compare and contrast, taking the best of each person's ideas and incorporating them into the problem solving plan. A committee of sort, this carves the path for motivational reasoning among group members. This means that instead of a student becoming nervous when his or her intelligence is challenged by means of assuming that he or she is inferior to his or her group mates, he or she only become more motivated. This teaching and learning method is invaluable in the college or university setting. In recent times, group learning as well as group collaboration have been included in the college practice as a way of establishing organized learning experience, asking students to complete tasks as a group and to assess themselves and their peers as a whole. This draws students out of their 'personal space bubble' forcing them to develop social relationships with their fellow students and to instead establish their roles as distinguished group members (Biggs, 1999; Boekaerts, 1997).
The choice remains up to the student whether or not he or she would prefer providing insightful ideas to a group of his or her classmates or to trust within his or herself and stride on with his or her own intelligent thoughts. Although it is unclear whether or not the group work system will become an increasingly used learning aspect in both the academic and work setting, many schools have shown the willingness to begin to adapt this idea:
Integrated curriculum adopts a student-centered approach, by nature of its definition, it moves further away from the modernist viewpoint. With an integrated curriculum, a "right" way to complete a task does not exist. Students are free to reach conclusions on their own and they are provided with many different perspectives, affording students the opportunity to question the conclusions of their teachers (Contardi et el, 1). With new innovative teaching and learning methods becoming apparent every year, allowing students and employees to have access to a collaborative learning environment is necessary to give them an appropriate amount of freedom needed for them to succeed both academically and socially as they develop stronger bonds and interpersonal relationships with their classmates and work colleagues.
Another important aspect of group work is the psychology behind it. Men and women working as a part of a team have a tendency to behave a particular way, especially while competing directly with another team. Being a part of a team means that the man or women is a part of a group which they feel they are accepted by and can be honest with. It becomes a part of his or her social identity as does the group opposite to them. The competing group is the group that an individual will define themselves against, and discriminate against based on various differing beliefs. While working as a team, it is important to be able to see the perspective of the other team members. The whole point of forming a collaborative group is to take several opinions of group members and together form a cohesive comprehensible thought of the task at hand. Another important aspect while forming the team is considering the negative psychological factors of trusting other people that could affect the overall progression. According to Benjamin Voyer:
You need to be aware of what can go wrong in the team setting. If you're aware that "group think" happens you can reflect back and see if you've been affected. When building a team you need to pay attention to the different types of profile you want in that team. In some industries where you have a high concentration of likeminded individuals, like in investment banking, there is not enough diversity of profiles. That can create more harm than good, resulting in confrontational perspective, intra-team conflict and intra-team competition.
A recent report suggests that working in a group also affects the individual's decision making process. An experimental study in which individuals were asked to make lottery style decisions yielded different results. While given the opportunity to make their decision as an individual in a private setting, participants were found to making high risk decisions with little thought of consequence. The same participants were then put into groups of three and asked to make another lottery decision. This time, however, participants were refusing to make high risk choices with the group's wellbeing in mind. Instead group members collaborated with each other before making a decision. The experiment demonstrates that individuals who belong to a group implementing a unanimity rule are significantly less risk averse than individuals who belong to a group that relies on the majority rule (Brunette et el, 357-76).
Working as a team provides real world practical application in addition to academic success among students. A team based approach to any problem is a viable way to deal with hardship in the workplace as well as to develop strong bonds between co-workers. A prime example of this is the staff members that make a school system function. While the school administrators and the teachers themselves make decisions in order to maximize the educational benefits students receive, various other staff members work behind the scenes making all the cogs of the clock mesh together. From bus drivers to school nurses, this diverse group of other job titles to many things to maintain a school's functionality such as maintaining school grounds and spending countless hours helping students, teachers and parents negotiate the complex process of getting an education. Anonymous team members like this often go unnoticed, even though each and every one of them tend to go "above and beyond the call of duty" to meet the needs of the students and schools they serve, often times going out of his or her way to purchase supplies certain underprivileged students desperately need but cannot afford, in order to maximize those student's learning experience. This "taking the extra step" initiative occurs daily at schools and companies alike all across the globe, all because these staff and faculty members care about what is best for his or her team.
In summary, working as an individual or collaborating with a team remains the choice of the students themselves. The situation should be evaluated so that a decision can be made based on what is best for the student at the time. In certain situations it may indeed be better to work as an individual, trusting his or her own instincts and intuition. Other times it is better to work with a group of peers, striving to complete a team goal, contemplating and collaborating in order to come up with a solution that the whole group can be proud of achieving. While individual work creates individual accountability, teamwork creates and builds interpersonal relationships of which are becoming more and more necessary as today's society relies less on the individualist approach, and more on a team approach, in order to quickly finish assigned tasks. As Mattie Stepanek would say "Unity is strength...when there is teamwork and collaboration, wonderful things can be achieved."

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